"Here, then, if we may be indulged a conjecture touching the origin of wool-sacks in the House of Lords, as a notable memorial of great consequence, we should imagine it to have been, if at all, sometime during this struggle; to perpetuate the remembrance of a noble stand made upon that occasion; and of an allowed indefeasible right in the subject not to be saddled with any tax or imposition by other authority than that of Parliament. This is not unworthy, nor altogether improbable. Another reason assigned, cannot be the true one, because they had been immemorially there; and by tradition, whether well grounded or not, as a remembrance or token of somewhat considerable, before it was so much thought of, to prohibit absolutely the exportation of wool from this realm."

FROM EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1568.

A. D. 1549. Not only lands were enclosed, and the growth of wool increased, but the woollen trade flourished; nevertheless, because rents were consequently advanced, and also, for another reason, the price of wool, therefore certain farmers and manufacturers, instigated by suppressed monks, took up arms, in Norfolk particularly; and the seditious there, sendtheir complaints to court, the council (for their pacification) had recourse to two extraordinary expedients; namely “that for the present rents should be reduced to what they had been forty years before;" and that "commissioners should cause clothiers to take what wool they wanted, at a less price, by one third, than they had given the foregoing year."

SMITH'S REMARKS.

"We call these extraordinary expedients; because, though a debasing of coin was one reason why the price of all things was nominally advanced at this time, yet that affecting equally at least,, both landlords and tenants, as any other person whatsoever, 'twas excessively hard and unjust to go about to abridge one of his rent, the other in selling his wool; since those were their dependencies respectively, for paying where they owed, and for purchasing what they wanted, and 'twas doubly hard upon land-owners, because they, in the upshot, must lose what tenants suffered by not receiving the natural value of their wool; while with regard to clothiers, who advanced their commodities in proportion as coin was debased, this expedient was no way necessary; they, for example, at Blackwell Hall, set prices on their cloths (in English money) according to the price it bore abroad, and not according

to the (nominal) valuation thereof given and proclaimed by the Prince for, whereas in consequence of this debasement, twentysix English shillings were but equal to thirteen Flemish; what cloth was but worth thirteen such shillings, they would not sell in Blackwell Hall for less than twenty-six English;' and that was sufficient reason why they ought not to have been commissioned to take wool for one-third less, which in selling of cloth was valued at one-third more, besides a profit in draping.

"The woollen manufacture, by this time, in several branches of old drapery, appears to have spread itself, besides London and the suburbs, into Berkshire, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Essex, Suffolk, Norwich, Norfolk, Winchester, Sarum, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Worcester and Worcestershire, Somersetshire, Devonshire, North and South Wales, Lancashire, Cheshire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumberland, the Bishopric of Durham, York and Yorkshire; Halifax, most eminently.

"In 1552, the corporation of German merchants, living in the Still-yard, who, the foregoing year, had shipped out forty-four thousand cloths, was dissolved, at the instance of the Merchant Adventurers, their rivals; who, in the same year, sent out forty thousand broad cloths at one shipping. Many things were objected to the merchants of the Still-yard, whose greatest fault seems to have been their privilege, by ancient grant or charter, of paying only one and a quarter on the hundred, for their exports and imports; which was judged to be in diminution of the King's revenue. ¦ However, they were restored for a time by Queen Mary; in whose reign the cloth trade was grown to be so very great in England, that exporting of raw wool was almost wholly decayed; and the revenue arising from customs on that head, reduced in a manner to nothing. Wherefore, in 1557, 'twas thought no bad policy to raise the custom on cloth, from 14d. to 6s. 8d. to be paid by Englishmen, and 13s. 4d. by strangers transporting the same; whence (says Mr. Wheeler) the custom on cloth became immediately equal to the custom on wool, when most.' And this is credible from Camden's account of the English trade abroad for woollen manufacture, so early in Queen Elizabeth's reign, as the year 1564, who says (and speaks it assuredly from authentic accounts) to Antwerp singly, it was not less in value than five millions of gold yearly; viz., at the very lowest reckoning, seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling; when there was besides, an exportation of woollens to Amsterdam, Hamburg, Scotland and Ireland, and France probably; to Sweden and Russia certainly.

"The great abuse and epidemical error in England about this subject, have been those of some representing, many believing,

our wool, so far a necessary to all the world, that cloth or stuff cannot be made, in any quantity at least, nor tolerable perfection, without it: that accordingly, till a prohibition took place, this nation neither made any advances towards a foreign trade with woollens, or even so much as in the manufacture for home use; nor foreigners, but as they obtained, first openly, and since in a clandestine manner, the material, hence, or from Ireland.

"That other nations are supplied with wool of their own, and from foreign countries, besides England and Ireland; but for what concerns the state of our own manufactories and exportation trade, in this period, when wool was not prohibited to be exported, the foregoing history of it is to be observed in contradiction again, not only to innumerable English, of less note, but those two illustrious foreigners, Grotius and Thuanus, who have represented us, thus long, and somewhat later, to have been only shepherds and husbandmen; our exports nothing but raw wool. How these two eminent persons fell into this very gross mistake, we know not; but so it was that they did, and subsequent writers seem to have been misled by them."

FROM THE YEAR 1568, TO THE END OF QUEEN

ELIZABETH'S REIGN.

In this period was a variety of incidents, some very favourable to the manufacturers, others again disadvantageous to the woollen trade of England.

In or soon after the year 1568, a number of French and Flemish refugees were encouraged to settle and follow their trades at Norwich, Colchester, Sandwich, Maidstone, and Southampton; but at the same time, through misbehaviour of merchants, a stop was put to a very beneficial trade for cloth, &c., in Russia, which cost the Queen some time and trouble to restore.

Also, upon a quarrel with Spain, the English merchants were prohibited all commerce (which suspension lasted five years,) and had besides their effects seized, both there and in the Low Countries.

Soon after, Antwerp was sacked, the English merchants there severely plundered, and withal obliged to redeem themselves at a very high ransom; but then, to make amends, commenced within a few years the English trade to Turkey.